"Lady," murmured Ronicky, "they's nothing to be afraid of. We're going to walk right up and down this street and never get out of sight of the friends you got in this here house."
At the word "friends" she shivered slightly, and he added: "Unless you want to go farther of your own free will."
"No, no!" she exclaimed, as if frightened by the very prospect.
"Then we won't. It's all up to you. You're the boss, and I'm the cow-puncher, lady."
"But tell me quickly," she urged. "I—I have to go back. I mustn't stay out too long."
"Starting right in at the first," Ronicky said, "I got to tell you that Bill has told me pretty much everything that ever went on between you two. All about the correspondence-school work and about the letters and about the pictures."
"I don't understand," murmured the girl faintly.
But Ronicky diplomatically raised his voice and went on, as if he had not heard her. "You know what he's done with that picture of yours?"
"No," she said faintly.
"He got the biggest nugget that he's ever taken out of the dirt. He got it beaten out into the right shape, and then he made a locket out of it and put your picture in it, and now he wears it around his neck, even when he's working at the mine."